Diane will be leading the free half-hour Buttoning It Up workshop at 4pm on Sunday afternoon — all the details are here. I put together a whole box of colorful buttons and some extra bits and pieces for her to bring down to the event. Stop by and choose your favorites to make a set of crafty hairclips — you can embellish them with rhinestones, alphabet beads, or layer on more buttons if you like, too!

And if you are interested, you can get your own copy of Button It Up in the Maker Shed all weekend, too. Thank you so much to Diane and CRAFT: for their support of the book and their love of buttons!

There is so much amazing stuff going on at Maker Faire — along with the awesome Bazaar Bizarre craft fair, there are lots of make-and-take projects to check out. Some of the ones that sound especially fun to me are:

I wish I could be there myself (I’m already looking forward to next year) but I’ll be eagerly checking out flickr and the CRAFT: blog for colorful updates and details! Have fun, makers!

Next week I’m going to start up my Favorite Shops series again with some new button sources I especially love. Let me know if you have one to suggest, too, I’d love to share some favorites from other folks!

p.s. I have just joined Ravelry (as susanstars) if you would like to be friends over there. I am a pretty slow knitter (I love it, but it’s kind of my sixth craft) but it’s so much fun to see what other people make, and I was thrilled to see that there are a whole bunch of groups for button lovers!

I had the chance to visit the 2009 Oregon State Button Society show this month and it was spectacular! I had never been to a button show before, but Myrna Goldware (of The Needle fame) told me about it a few months ago, and I marked my calendar right away. I had Pearl in tow, so my time was short, but it was a fantastic experience and I’m so glad I got to see it all.

The theme this year was “Buttons… The Stories They Tell,” which was fascinating. Everyone at the show was so welcoming and they immediately gave me permission to take pictures… so I started my trek around the room with a few of the exhibits, like this set of hand-embellished clothes and accessories in the style of the world-famous Pearly Kings and Queens.

There were also rows and rows of trays in the back of the room, which members had created for themed competitions.

I loved seeing all the buttons together in these inventive and fascinating combinations, it was almost too much to take in! Here are a few I especially liked, all having to do with my favorites, pearl buttons:

The center of the room was all dealers and collectors (you can get a much better idea of the scope in these photos), with thousands and thousands of buttons for sale. I got to meet Jocelyn (who supplies The Needle with buttons galore), which was lovely, and snap a few photos of some of her legions of buttons for sale, all neatly arranged on cards inside dozens of flip-boxes, sorted by material and type:

I’ll round up all of my finds and post a photo of them together — I found some very sweet Bakelite, casein and (of course) pearl buttons. My last purchase was six tiny, exquisite baby pearl buttons, perfect for embellishing something special for my own baby Pearl.

All of my photos are here and you can find out lots more about the Oregon society here, and see their photos from the show here. The 2010 show is already set for April 30 – May 1, and the theme is Luau, Button Style… I’ve got the dates circled on my calendar and this time I’m hoping to spend a longer chunk of the day there!